4 ms·
There are so many things Microsoft was ahead of the times. For example, they had what are now 'Electron apps' in the 1990's (hta files). And how I wheep when I
by roel_v 7y ago
There are so many things Microsoft was ahead of the times. For example, they had what are now 'Electron apps' in the 1990's (hta files). And how I wheep when I look back at the power of COM, how I complained about it back when I didn't understand it, and what could have if we'd had proper object technology today.
- agent008t 7y agoWindows also had some chat application, hidden within the Windows folder, that allowed you to draw comic book style panels and converse using those over a network. I have never actually seen it used live, but it seemed like an interesting concept.
- WorldMaker 7y agoUnder the hood Microsoft Comic Chat was a relatively generic IRC client. There's an interesting community of folks still randomly using it and you can find questionably legal, definitely unsupported downloads in places.
- russh 7y agoHonestly Comic Chat is one of the best things to ever come out of Microsoft. I miss it.
- theamk 7y ago> power of COM [...], and what could have if we'd had proper object technology today. Editors which can always crash, because they are as stable as the least stable plugin? Formulas you can no longer edit because you do not have that specific formula editor installed? Completely closed and proprietary binary storage formats? Security as weak as the weakest app installed on your machine? Granted, in the 1990's, COM was probably a pretty good thing -- it was very fast and efficient, at the expense of stability. Today, I'd prefer different tradeoff -- stable, secure and open; and if I have to wait 5 seconds for my auto-rendered markdown to get updated, it's OK, I can do so.